DataBreaches.Net

Menu
  • About
  • Breach Notification Laws
  • Privacy Policy
  • Transparency Report
Menu

Montgomery County Public Schools forces password reset after Naviance hacked

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Dissent

Update:  It was a Maryland student who did it.


Brad Shear forwarded a notice he received yesterday concerning a breach impacting students of the Montgomery County Public School District. The cover email, from Luana Zimmerman of college career service Naviance began:

Due to a recent data security incident in Naviance that affected one of our high schools, MCPS is requiring all MCPS students who use Naviance (6th –12th grade) to reset their password. MCPS is resetting Naviance passwords for all MCPS students to ensure that student information stays safe, in an abundance of caution. The attachment can assist in resetting passwords. As of 4:30pm, today, October 14, any student attempting to log into Naviance, whether at home or at school, will be prompted to change their password.

Naviance’s notice, below, explains that on October 3, it suffered a brute force attack that impacted 1,343 Naviance student accounts and one parent/guardian account at Wheaton High School.

The brute force attack occurred over a two-hour period in the evening, and “The unauthorized user attempted many username and password combinations,eventually gaining access to 1,344 accounts.”

Naviance does not explain why a brute force attack didn’t trigger a lockout or other defensive measures. Why was the attacker allowed to keep automatically trying combinations and then able to download information from more than 1,000 accounts without alarms going off and defenses kicking in?

As Doug Levin noted on Twitter, this was not the district’s first breach. Of note, it was not their first third-party breach, either, as this site has reported another one in the past.

The types of information potentially acquired by the attacker included Name, Date of Birth, Highest ACT Score, Ethnicity, Grade Level, Highest IB Score, Gender, Student ID #, Student Address, GPA, Weighted GPA, Home Phone #, Email Address, Highest SAT Score, Mobile Phone #, Assigned Counselor, Highest PSAT Score, and Nickname.

Data Breach Notification - Naviance_MERGED
Category: Education SectorHackSubcontractorU.S.

Post navigation

← French TV channel M6 and Pitney Bowes both report ransomware attacks
Phorpiex botnet made $115,000 in five months just from mass-spamming sextortion emails →

Now more than ever

"Stand with Ukraine:" above raised hands. The illustration is in blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine's flag.

Search

Browse by Categories

Recent Posts

  • Fraudsters, murderers, students: who the GRU assembled a team of hacker provocateurs from and why it failed
  • Order of Psychologists of Lombardy fined 30,000 € for inadequate data security protection and detection following ransomware attack
  • Lower Merion School District says a data breach was caused by a computer glitch
  • After $1 Million Ransom Demand, Virgin Islands Lottery Restores Operations Without Paying Hackers
  • Junior Defence Contractor Arrested For Leaking Indian Naval Secrets To Suspected Pakistani Spies
  • Mysterious leaker GangExposed outs Conti kingpins in massive ransomware data dump
  • Resource: HoganLovells Asia-Pacific Data, Privacy and Cybersecurity Guide 2025
  • Class action settlement following ransomware attack will cost Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center about $52 million
  • Comstar LLC agrees to corrective action plan and fine to settle HHS OCR charges
  • Australian ransomware victims now must tell the government if they pay up

No, You Can’t Buy a Post or an Interview

This site does not accept sponsored posts or link-back arrangements. Inquiries about either are ignored.

And despite what some trolls may try to claim: DataBreaches has never accepted even one dime to interview or report on anyone. Nor will DataBreaches ever pay anyone for data or to interview them.

Want to Get Our RSS Feed?

Grab it here:

https://databreaches.net/feed/

RSS Recent Posts on PogoWasRight.org

  • Fears Grow Over ICE’s Reach Into Schools
  • Resource: HoganLovells Asia-Pacific Data, Privacy and Cybersecurity Guide 2025
  • She Got an Abortion. So A Texas Cop Used 83,000 Cameras to Track Her Down.
  • Why AI May Be Listening In on Your Next Doctor’s Appointment
  • Watch out for activist judges trying to deprive us of our rights to safe reproductive healthcare
  • Nebraska Bans Minor Social Media Accounts Without Parental Consent
  • Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans

Have a News Tip?

Email: Tips[at]DataBreaches.net

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

Contact Me

Email: info[at]databreaches.net

Mastodon: Infosec.Exchange/@PogoWasRight

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

DMCA Concern: dmca[at]databreaches.net
© 2009 – 2025 DataBreaches.net and DataBreaches LLC. All rights reserved.